Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1887-05-04
CHAPTER vi.
THE STORM BREAKS.

"Do you know you are very odd person.
Miss JESS" John said presently with little
laugh. II don't think you can have happy
mind"
She looked up. "a happy minds" she said.
"Who can have happy mindl Nobody who
can feel. Supposing," she went on after a
-"supposing one puts ones self and
ones own little interests and joys and sorrows
quite away, how is it possible to be happy
when one feels the breath Of human misery
beating on ones face and sees the great tide
of sorrow and suffering creeping up to ones
feet2 One may be on rock ones self and
out of the path Of it till the spring floods or
the hurricane wave comes to sweep one away,
or one may be ahoat upon it; whichever it is,
it Is quite impossible, if one has any heart, to
be indiffere''' to it."
"Then OIL the Indifferent are heppy?"
ayes, the Indifferent and the selfish; but,
after all, it is the same thing; indifference is
the perfection Of selfishness."
II am afraid that there must be lots Of
selfshness in the world, for there is certainly
plenty of happiness, all evil things notwith-
standing. should have said that happiness
comes from goodness and from sound diges-
tion."
jess shook her head as she answered, II may
be wrong, but don't see how anybody who
feels can be quite happy in world of sick
ness, suffering, slaughter and death. saw
Kafiir woman die yesterday and her children
crying over her. She was poor creature
and had rough lot, but she loved her life
and her children loved her. Who can be
happy and thank God for his creation when
he has just seen such a thing9 But there.
Capt. Mel, my ideas are very crude and I
dare say very wrong, and everybody has
thought them before; at any rate I am not
going to inflct them on you. What is the
use of it!' she went on, with laugh; "what
is the use of anything2 The same old thoughts
passing through the same human minds from
year to year and century to century, just as
the same clouds float across the same blue
sky. The clouds are born in the sky and the
thoughts are born in the brain, and they both
end in tears and rearise in binding, bewilder
ing mist, and this is the beginning and end Of
thoughts and clouds. They arise out Of the
blue; they overshadow and break into storms
and tears, and then they are drawn up with
the blue again and the whole thing begins
afresh."
"So you don't think that one can be happy
in the worlda" he asked.
"I did not say that never said that. !
do not think that happiness is possible 1t is
possible if one can love somebody so hard
that one can quite forget ones self and every
thing else except that person, and it is pos
sible if one can sacrifice ones self for others.
There is no true happiness oatside of love and
self sacrifice, or rather outside nf love, for 1t
includes the other. That is gold, all the rest
is gilt"
allow do you know that!" he asked quickly.
"You have never been in love-"
"Nc,r she answered, II have never been In
love like that, but all the happiness l have
had in my life has como to NE from loving.
believe that love is the secret Of the world;
it is like the philosophers stone they used to
look for, and almost as hard to find, but when
one finds it it turns everything to gold Per-
haps," she went OIL with little laugh, "when
the angels left the earth they left us love be-
hind, that by it and through it we may climb
up to them again. 1t is the ono thing that
lifts us above the brutes Without love man
is brute, and nothing but brute; with love
he draws near to God. When everything else
falls away the love will endure because it can
Not die while there is any life, if it is true love,
for it is immortal. Only it must be true
YOU see, it must be true"
He had got through her reserve now; the
ice of her manner broke up beneath the
warmth Of her words, and her usually im-
passive face had caught the life and light
from the eyes above and acquired certain
beauty of it's own. He looked at it, and
realized something of the untaught and i'll
regulated intensity and depth of the nature Of
this curious girl He caught her eyes and
they moved him strangely, though he was not
all emotional man, and was too old to expert
ence spasmodic thrills at the chance glances
Of pretty woman. He went toward her,
looking at her curiously.
at would be worth living to be loved like
that" he said, more to himself than to her.
She did not answer but she let her eyes rest
on his. Indeed, she did more, for she put NIL
her soul into them and gazed and gazed till
John Mel felt as though he were being nles-
merized. And as she did so there rose up in
her breast knowledge that if she willed it
she could gain this mans heart and hold it
against all the world, for her nature was
stronger than his nature, and her mind, un-
trained as it was, encompassed his mind and
could pass over it and beat it down as the
wind beats down q tossing sea. All this she
learned in moment, in the twinkling of an
eye; she did not know how she knew it, but
she did know it as surely Us she knew that the
blue sky stretched overhead, and what is
more, he-for the moment, ut any rate-knew
it too. 1t came OH her as Il shock and reve-
lation, like the tidings of great joy or grief,
and for c moment left her heart empty of all
things else
She dropped her eyes suddenly.
~ think" she said, quietly, "that we have
been talking a great deal of nonsense, and
that want to finish my sketch"
He got up and left her, for he had to get
home, saying as he did so that he thought
there was a storm coming up, the air was so
Al. G,1I